


Lesson and Absolution

by eilonwy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, HP: EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Psychological Trauma, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-12
Updated: 2010-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-25 17:46:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eilonwy/pseuds/eilonwy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two short pieces written for Round Seven of the Dramione Awards' Special Challenge, in the drabble and flash fiction categories, respectively.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lesson and Absolution

**Author's Note:**

> The overall theme of the challenge was "Celebrate the little things." Everybody chose their prompt from a list of pertinent quotes and went from there. Although each piece stands alone, I view them as two perspectives on the same subject matter, one Draco's and the other, Hermione's. "Absolution" has been voted Runner-up, Best Special Challenge Flash Fiction.

Lesson

 

"There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic."  
\--Anais Nin 

 

 

Demoralised. Terrified. Feeling pulled in five directions at once.

Drawing and quartering, wasn’t that what they called this particular brand of torture?

Torture was what seventh year, especially those final days of the war, had been. No time to process the larger significance of his failure to kill Dumbledore before the war had erupted in earnest. Then the true horrors had begun.

Chaos rooted in utter madness.

Now he’d returned, at times not entirely sure why.

Oddly comforting, though, sitting in the shadowy library again, with its dusty, old-parchment smell. She was there too, across the room. He found himself glad.

 

 

*

 

 

Absolution

 

“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.”  
\--Carl Sagan

 

 

Walls, ceilings, windows, floors.

The ancient stonework should have stood for centuries longer, only suffering the spidery cracks that time, rain and persistent ivy imposed. So much was now charred rubble, splintered glass.

Hogwarts Castle was broken, but struggling to stand. Some teachers had returned, those McGonagall had successfully persuaded, and small bunches of students had trickled back as well, now that September had arrived.

Hermione paused at the foot of the Grand Staircase, glancing down a corridor still in ruins. Trudging up the steps, she instinctively gripped the banister as the staircase began a precipitous shift to the right. She’d missed virtually all of seventh year. But she’d worked too hard the previous six to abandon everything now.

Coming back was hard, though. There were ghosts everywhere. Those students who had returned seemed little more than shadows themselves, tentative and subdued. The pervasive quiet was eerie.

Discovering him in a remote corner of the library, his blond head bent over a book, had been a shock. She hadn’t realised he’d returned as well. Sensing her eyes on him, he’d glanced up. An enigmatic half-smile, a slight lift of an eyebrow, and then he’d turned back to his book.

 

*

 

“Couldn’t stay away, eh, Granger?”

Hermione looked up from her plate. Malfoy had taken the seat next to hers. There were so few students, relatively, that all the houses mixed together now at shared tables.

She shook her head, smiling a bit ruefully. “You either, I see.”

“Reckon not.” His laugh was hollow. “My parents… well… let’s just say me coming back here wasn’t exactly high on their agenda.”

“But you came anyway,” Hermione said quietly. “Why? You didn’t have to. Especially--”

She trailed off and, colouring faintly, studied the food on her plate.

“Especially after what I did. It’s okay. You can say it.” He stabbed grimly at a bit of chicken, his voice lower now. “It’s my fault, all this. Everybody knows that. I just… I wanted to help put it back, see?”

He looked away for a moment and then met her pensive gaze once again, his own clear and unflinching now, almost defiant.

After a long moment, both turned back to their meal.

“Pass the pumpkin juice,” he muttered after a while, and then casually, almost as an afterthought, he added, “S’pose you’ll be in the library later…?” He slanted a quick, covert look at her.

She nodded, handing him the jug. “Mmm.”

Hastily downing his drink, Malfoy stood, hoisting his satchel over his shoulder. “Well… see you.”

“See you,” she murmured, watching him stride away, and then looked up at a sudden noise overhead.

Just above a gaping hole in the ceiling, an owl hovered for a moment, its powerful wings beating the air, before streaking off, wraith-like, into the deepening blue of the evening sky. Around Hermione, students were pushing back their chairs and preparing to head off to their common rooms.

Shards of normalcy. A beginning.

Grabbing her bag, Hermione followed.

 

 

Fin

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thanks, as always, to mister_otter, my magnificent beta!


End file.
